My feeble attempt at IBC education...

I found a news story about a woman recently diagnosed with Inflammatory Breast Cancer (commonly referred to as "IBC") and thought that the doctor did a really good job explaining what makes this cancer a little different than most breast cancers.  It's a really short video, but if you don't want to watch it...let me paraphrase what I feel was the most important statement made in the whole video.  You know your body.  You know if something is different.  Don't let a doctor or your fears convince you to stop seeking a diagnosis or treatment!



Breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death among women. An estimated 232,340 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer, and 39,620 will die from the disease in 2013, according to the National Cancer Institute.
A Medscape article reported that, "Inflammatory Breast Cancer (IBC) accounts for 1%-5% of all breast cancer cases but 10% of breast cancer deaths.  Historically, 5-year survival in IBC has been less that 5% when treated with surgery or radiation therapy, increasing to 30%-40% with Multimodal therapy that includes preoperative chemotherapy adequate to induce pathologic complete response (CR) before surgery."  Simply speaking, research found that including chemotherapy with the surgery and radiation drastically increased survival rates.  According to my oncologist, he has calculated my 5-year survival rate at 93% and my cure rate at 56%.  Essentially, he thinks I'm going to be around at least 5 more years and the chances are greater than not that at the end of my treatments he will be able to confirm that I am cancer-free!  I do admit that his confidence means a great deal to me, but my confidence in the Great Physician is much greater.